Jaunted

Tags: Amtrak / Trains / Train Travel / Vancouver Travel / Seattle Travel / Portland Travel / Olympics Travel / → All Tags

Amtrak Opening Up Northwest With Even More Seattle-Vancouver Service

Amtrak's Northwest Corridor, already busy in anticipation of the 2010 Olympics, just got a little bit busier. As of August 19th, the train company has added a second daily train to the Seattle-Vancouver portion of their Cascades route, a network of rails that bind Portland to Vancouver and back. The new train means that travelers now have direct daily round-trip service starting all the way at the bottom of the route and all the way till the end.

Amtrak Cascades connects Portland to Seattle with four daily round-trips, and then travelers are routed to their final destinations accordingly. They're celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, with the expanded Seattle-Vancouver route being a part of that. For the rest of the celebrations, which include promotions and events, there's even a dedicated 10th anniversary page.

more ›

Tags: Music Festivals / Music Travel / Portland Travel / Events / → All Tags

Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay...In Portland, Oregon

A scene from last year's MFNW

As a destination, Portland is best known for being calm, idyllic, and very, very, very green. Though it's not a swarming metropole, it has, for years, also enjoyed a reputation for being a major culture hub in the Northwest.

What the city lacks in grit and grime it makes up for with a music scene to rival that of Seattle and San Francisco. Just ask the likes of The Dandy Warhols, The Decemberists, and The Shins, all of whom have ties to Portland. In other words, it's a lot more rock 'n' roll than the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden lets on.

more ›

Tags: Pirate Travel / Events / Festivals / Portland Travel / → All Tags

Love Pirates? Portland Pirate Festival Loves You Back

What do you call it when a bunch of pirates get together? Well, call it this fall's Portland Pirate Festival, which needs your help setting a world recARRRRRd for the most fully dressed pirates in one location.

The salty sea dogs will board Cathedral Park September 19th and 20th for two days of kraken riding, sea chanteys and grog. Watch an exhibition of Samoan fire knife dancing or pirate belly-dancing (which we must see to believe), or play a role-playing game called Pirates of the Cursed Seas. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the gate ($6/$8 for children under 12).

more ›

Tags: Dave Chappelle / Pioneer Square / Portland Travel / Celeb Travel / Flash Mobs / Twitter / → All Tags

Dave Chappelle Breaks It Down for Portland's Pioneer Square

Our favorite comedian before he abruptly left the public eye, Dave Chappelle, is apparently still crazy but this time, his crazy actions benefited thousands of folks who crowded Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon to see him do a sort of flash mob stand-up routine after rumors lit up Facebook and the Twitterwaves.

The comedian, who suddenly dropped out of a lucrative $50 million contract for his Comedy Central sketch show and the comedy scene altogether, stepped on stage just after midnight and performed for nearly 90 minutes.

From the Oregonian:

Chappelle seemed surprised by the scene.

"This has never happened in my entire career," he said, to a huge cheer. "I'm grateful everybody came out."

Chappelle did squeeze in some comedy. He compared one guy working on the sound system to Scotty from Star Trek, and took an OPB reporter's microphone and said, "Support Oregon Public Broadcasting." At one point, a woman and two men atop Starbucks began stripping as Chappelle gaped and the crowd cheered and jeered.

By 2 a.m., it was clear the sound system wouldn't go, and Chappelle wound things down. He thanked the crowd and shared a few things he learned, including: "Don't tell a secret in Portland."

more ›

Tags: Dunkin' Donuts Alternatives / Donuts / Food Travel / Portland Travel / → All Tags

Portland Has America's Craziest Doughnuts

Chicago has its street dog vendors. DC has jumbo slice. New York has Pommes Frites. Every half-decent drinking town has that one late-night, greasy, calorie-ridden eating option that any sane, sober person would avoid like the plague, but at 2 a.m. after a particularly arduous bar crawl, sounds like the very best idea in the world.

In Portland, Oregon, that option is doughnuts. Specifically, VooDoo Doughnut, a tiny, 24-7 downtown bakery outfitted with a disco ball and quirky duct tape mural, where a rowdy line inevitably starts forming once the bars start closing.

These hot, freshly baked treats could probably have attracted a following just by keeping it simple, and indeed, their basic frosted chocolate doughnuts rank up there with the best. But what keeps the late-night crowds streaming in here are the much, much crazier options, including doughnuts covered in oddball toppings of the day, from mini-marshmallows to Lucky Charms to bacon strips.

Are you going to feel good about eating a bacon-covered doughnut the next morning? Absolutely not, but that's hardly the point.

Related Stories:
· Voodoo Doughnut [Official Site]
· Get Dat Donut [Jaunted]
· Do-Nuts So Old School, They Won't Drop the Hyphen [Jaunted]

[Photo: kimberly marie lawson]